How to Find the Best Business Coach in New York City
There’s a reason they say, “if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”
The possibilities for success in New York, NY are endless; the problem is, 18.8 million other inhabitants are fighting for that same success.
The city attracts the best of the best, which means the job market is extremely cutthroat, and every professional experience involves a high level of competition.
New Yorkers have to constantly be on their feet, improving themselves or their business, making sure their skills are always sharpened, and overcoming the challenges the city throws their way.
It’s a difficult undertaking for anyone to achieve on their own. This is where a business coach's resources, experience, knowledge, and strategy comes in.
Business professionals, industry experts, company leaders, and business executives all know that the path to self-improvement and success is most efficiently conquered with training and guidance.
New York professionals need an unbiased coach to help them stand out against the competition and attain success.
Here are the 5 main benefits of business coaching:
Close your knowledge gaps—A knowledge gap is a distance between what you do know and what you need to know. During your coaching sessions, a coach will identify and assess your strengths, skills, and knowledge to close any significant gaps.
Offer unbiased opinion—A business coach isn’t paid to sugar coat anything, like other people in your life who have formed biased opinions about you. Oftentimes, a CEO or other company leaders and managers find themselves in leadership positions with no one to turn to for honest advice. A coach can help people by offering constructive criticism from an objective viewpoint.
Detect your blind spots—The way you view yourself and the world usually involves many blind spots. These blind spots can be issues that may be holding you back from improving or succeeding—the problem with blind spots, by definition, is you can’t see them and therefore don’t even know they exist. A coach has the ability to reveal the blind spots and offer guidance on how to push your career to the next level.
Accountability partnership—A coach will be someone in your corner that’s consistently holding you accountable for everything you do or don’t do—forcing you to fiercely follow through on your action plan, change certain behaviors, and reach your goals.
Sounding board–A coach will offer you a safe space to express your experience, errors, achievements, and anything you find most important. A coach should encourage their clients to express themselves and help an idea flourish into something tangible.
Just like New York can be a difficult city to make it, it can also be increasingly difficult to find the best coaching service for your needs.
Luckily, we’ve highlighted New York City’s main challenges to overcome so you can finally start your self-improvement journey with coaching.
Challenge #1: Big City Problems
Having so many residents on one island poses two issues.
There are many people just like you, looking for a business coach. With so many people looking for the same thing, it can be hard to land an appointment with the right one.
More people means there’s more—much more—coaches to choose from.
How do you find the right one in an ocean of coaches to choose from? It can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Word of Mouth
A lot of people rely on referrals to expand their coaching services. This means they encourage their clients to recommend their services to others.
A good way to narrow down your search is by asking your friends, relatives, or colleagues if they have any business coach recommendations. Before asking your colleague, Michael, to give you their coach's name or phone number, be sure to ask him these questions:
How the coach helped them; did their advice help them advance in their career or personal life?
Did the coach keep their word on the commitments they offered?
How readily was the coach available to them?
Search Locally
If you feel that your business coach needs to be expertly familiar with your home and community to comprehend you fully, you should start by searching locally.
Some small business owners or entrepreneurs believe there is an advantage to searching for a career coach in their local area; they believe they can offer specific insight that only a local could.
Visit your local Better Business Bureau or your chamber of commerce and ask members of these organizations for coach recommendations. You can also attend their networking meetings; local business coaches attend these gatherings to find clients.
Virtual Search
Your best bet at narrowing down your search and finding the right business coach for your needs will be to search virtually.
Living in NY doesn’t necessarily mean you need a New York, NY coach.
By searching virtually, you open the door to more valuable options anywhere across the world, increasing your chances of finding your perfect match.
Many specialized platforms facilitate your online search for a coach. For example, sites like CoCaptain allow you to narrow down your search by presenting you with coaching options that match your specific criteria.
Challenge #2: Fast-Paced Lifestyle
The city operates at an accelerated pace; New Yorkers are constantly on the go, commuting across bridge and tunnel, zooming back and forth from work, home, and recreation.
It’s no wonder your time is always limited, and making appointments or meetings usually feels like an extra burden.
Packed Schedule
A busy schedule, extended commute time, and exhaustion are all factors that can prevent New Yorkers from finding the best coach for their needs.
Especially an entrepreneur who works 40 hour work weeks or a struggling business owner—they're short on time and resources as it is.
Looking for and finding a coach is a pursuit that should be done with careful consideration. It involves carefully reviewing and interviewing potential candidates until you find the one that feels like a perfect match.
Scheduling interviews and commuting from those meetings can take a huge chunk out of your day and can begin to feel like a waste of time when you can’t seem to find the right coach.
Virtual Coaching
Lucky, we live in the 21st century, and the internet exists.
Looking for coaching—virtually—is the most time-efficient option. You can look through countless candidate profiles with the click of a button and interview them from the comfort of your home.
The process of finding a coach is much smoother when looking online, but sites like CoCaptain go the extra mile and continue to facilitate your coaching journey even after you’ve chosen your coach.
CoCaptain can make the administrative details that go into coaching a million times faster and easier for you.
For example, after connecting you with your coach, they handle the administration, offer automated billing, and have an easy-to-use scheduling feature.
Gone are the days of taking an extra 15 minutes of setting up an appointment or navigating through bank policies to pay your coach. We know how valuable those extra 15 minutes can be.
Challenge #3: New York City is EXPENSIVE
Nobody knows better than a New Yorker just how expensive NYC can be. The city ranks among the top 10 most expensive cities globally, from ever-rising rent costs, outrageous cocktail prices to increasing commute costs.
The city's expenses can make people hesitant to dish out their extra cash on coaching services.
Most regrettably, the people that have less money to spend on business coaching are the people who most need a coach’s help.
Coaching Can Be Expensive (but it doesn’t have to be)
Some executive coaches have been known to give their spots to the clients with the deepest pockets. Simultaneously, other lower-profile coaches feel the need to substantially raise their fees as a strategy to make up for the lack of clientele.
This is why coaching was mostly reserved for only top executives and business leaders who could afford the costs—not every-day entrepreneurs and low-level employees looking to improve their business knowledge or sharpen their skills.
But all of that is changing now. CoCaptain, for example, aims to make coaching accessible to everyone.
CoCaptain offers sessions from vetted and experienced coaches of all categories, from a wide range of prices. They consider what kind of coaching session you’re looking for and what price options you can afford.
Business coaching is an investment in yourself, but it shouldn’t break the bank or leave you feeling stressed out over the price tag.
Bottom Line:
The city’s challenges can feel overbearing at times, but they shouldn’t discourage you from seeking help from a coach.
Whether you're an entrepreneur seeking career guidance, a CEO looking for an executive coach to help manage your employees, or if you're just a person who needs the experience of a life coach—when there's a will, there's a way.
When you decide to leap into coaching, it shouldn't feel like another burden to improve your personal and professional life.
With the advancements in technology and the increased awareness about the benefits of business coaching, finding the best business coach in New York—it's easier than you think.
If you’re a New Yorker and have other tips on finding a business coach in the city, share your wisdom on the comments section below:
